by Sean Golden
Lirak blinked his eyes. All he could see were great yellow spots in his eyes.
“I can’t see” he heard Patrik say.”
“I warned you not to look at the powder,” Chutan said. “But don’t worry, it was only a little powder, your eyesight will return.”
As he said this, the yellow spots in Lirak’s eyes began to shrink, and soon he was able to see again, although the afterimages of the bright light remained for several moments. He saw that the rock had cracked, and was blackened and broken where the powder had been. The burning branch had gone out entirely, its end burned clean through as though cut by a knife.
“This is why the power of the firestones must be kept secret” said Chutan.
Lirak remembered his dream, and the blinding flashes of the battle at the great wall. “I think this isn’t as secret as you wish it to be, Chutan” he said. “If my dreams are to be trusted, the invaders have this secret already.”
“No, they don’t use the firestone,” Chutan said. “They use sorcery.”
“What’s the difference?” Lirak said. “Both seem to do the same thing.”
“No, sorcery is far more dangerous,” Chutan said.
Lirak walked over and picked up the rock, dropping it quickly because it was still scorching hot. He stuck his finger in his mouth as he looked at the rock closely. He saw that parts of the rock had melted under the heat.
“Will it burn like this when mixed into the tree sap?” he asked Chutan.
“Yes it will burn. The sap will stick to wood, and when it burns, it will burn through the wood quickly.” Chutan held up a small wooden bowl, “When Dobit and Niwoq return, we will use the sap.”
Soon Dobit and Niwoq came back, each carrying a small wooden bucket. They gave the buckets to Chutan. Lirak and Patrik came closer. The sap from the seeping tree was runny, almost watery, but dried hard. The Dwon used the sap to make their boats and huts watertight. Lirak had used it as glue on his stone knife.
Chutan poured a bit into the small bowl. Then he mixed the three powders in the stone grinding bowl again, using a very small amount. Finally he poured the mixed powder into the sap and used a small stick to stir it. As Lirak and Patrik watched, he used a small twig to apply the mixture to a wooden branch about as thick as Lirak’s forearm. He carefully spread the mixture in a circle around the middle of the branch. Then he stuck it in the ground and using the same technique as before, set it on fire.
Again the bright blue flash lit up the camp. Again the “whoosh!” sound filled Lirak’s ears. When he opened his eyes to look, the branch was engulfed in flame, and quickly fell over as the areas of the mixture burned all the way through the wood. The two pieces continued burning until Patrik ground them out in the dirt.
“That is what will happen to their floating huts,” Chutan said. Turning to Niwoq he said “Bring Tayir to me.” Niwoq jogged out of the camp.
Soon he came back with an older man, one of the oldest surviving villagers besides Chutan. He looked at Lirak and Patrik, then walked over to Chutan.
“What did you want me for?” he asked.
“How many floating huts are on the river?”
“There are four, Chutan,” Tayir said. Two arrived today and are still out in the river. One is in close to the shore where they go back and forth on small canoes. One looks to be preparing to leave.”
“How long will the one near shore stay there?” Chutan asked.
“Usually they move to the middle of the river at night, even if they still have things to bring to shore.” Tayir looked briefly at the sky, where the sun was beginning to skim the top of the Haguille Mountains. “They will probably move it out soon for the night.”
“Thank you Tayir,” Chutan said.
Lirak looked at the buckets of sap, and at the sacks of powder. “Four of them?” he asked?
“There will be enough, with powder to spare,” Chutan said. “It will be easy to swim out to them and put the firestone powder on them, but it will be hard to light them on fire.”
Lirak nodded. “Yeah, that’s going to be the real trick.” He looked at Patrik. “Let’s find Gawn and Jerok and see if we can figure out how we do that.”
Fire In The Water
Vurl is an angry god. The heat of his anger is as the heat of the sun. All that Vurl’s anger touches is destroyed. Beware Vurl’s wrath.
– Dwon oral tradition
Eight figures moved in the night by the shore of the river, well upstream of the point the southern trail met the river. Each carried a large wooden bowl, and they slipped silently into the river. From each swimmer a covered bowl floated downstream, to suddenly stop as it reached the end of a strap tied to the swimmer’s belt. They swam strongly out into the current, then let the current carry them down the river. Only the tops of their heads and the bowls broke the surface of the water. Soon the figures were lost to sight in the jumble of the river’s flotsam.
Lirak and Patrik swam slowly out to the middle of the river. They carefully made sure the bowls didn’t fill with water. They approached the first floating structure, and slowly and carefully swam further out, letting the current carry them past. Lirak thought he saw two small objects in the water come to a rest against one massive rope in front of the floating hut, he hoped that was Niwoq and Dobit, who were to handle the first of the floating huts.
Twice more they allowed the current to carry them past the large shapes in the darkness, and twice more Lirak hoped that the plan was working. The second target was for Jerok and Gawn. The third was for Kalie and Mayrie. Finally he saw the fourth shape looming in the darkness, and he and Patrik swam against the current, his bowl tugging on his strap. Lirak heard noises from the inside of the structure. Now that he was this close he saw that it was not like a hut after all. It was more like a huge canoe, with walls and a roof. The sides of it were made of thick wood planks. Three massive ropes led from the front of the structure down into the water. Lirak guessed that was what kept it from moving in the current.
Lirak moved under the massive rope and swam against the river’s current, pulling on his strap to keep his bowl from bumping against the side of the structure. This kept him and the bowl even with the ropes in the current. Patrik tied a braided leather cord to the massive middle rope as they had planned, and soon both were holding onto the leather rope with the bowl and brushes between them. Lirak pulled his bowl up to the rope, untied it from his belt, and tied it to the rope where it floated. He lifted the wooden lid on the bowl and saw that the coal inside was still glowing where it sat in a hollow in a flat rock. So far so good.
Patrik had meanwhile moved down the leather rope with the other bowl, which contained the sap/firestone mixture and brush. Lirak let go of the rope and let the current carry him to Patrik, where he also grabbed the leather rope. Lirak removed the lid from the bowl and held it steady while Patrik used one hand to dip the brush into the bowl and spread it on the planks. This was trickier than they had expected, Patrik had to hold onto the rope with one hand while kicking with his feet to stay above water, and then reach his free hand into the bowl with the brush to apply the sap and powder mixture to the planks.
Patrik worked as quickly as possible, but the difficult task soon tired him out, and he and Lirak switched positions. When they had used up about half of the mixture in the bowl, they swam and pulled themselves back up the leather rope to the front of the boat and did the same thing down the other side, making certain that the material was applied so that it was a continuous swath around the front of the structure. There were sounds of footsteps from time to time from inside the structure, but no challenge came out from above. Lirak was sure the invaders felt completely secure and wondered if they even had posted a watch.
When they finally emptied the bowl, Lirak and Patrik swam back to the front of the structure. He hoped that the other teams had managed to complete their own efforts. No sound came out of the dark. Now came the riskiest part of the night. Lirak pulled out a small stone knife from
a pouch on his belt. Lifting the stone blade, Lirak held his breath. Then with all his strength he drove the knife into the plank right where the sap mixture had been spread. The sound was surprisingly muted, but was still loud to his ears. He listened carefully, but heard nothing from within the structure or from above. He realized he was still holding his breath and quietly let it out while he treaded water. From upstream he thought he heard a similar “thump”, but could not be certain. Patrik then pulled his bowl up and reached inside removing a dripping coiled length of leather which had been soaking for most of the evening in the sap/firestone mixture. He carefully tied it to the blade, being sure it was tied so that it rested against the giant canoe’s side. Patrik was a more powerful swimmer than Lirak, so he swam upstream with one arm held high out of the water, uncoiling the leather cord as he swam back up to the massive rope where the other bowl was tied. Lirak swam beside him. Chutan had told them that even if they got the cord wet at this time, it would not matter, but Lirak and Patrik were determined not to allow anything to go wrong. When they reached the rope, Patrik tied the cord high up so that it didn’t touch the water along its entire length.
Now they waited for the signal, turning their heads to look upstream. The water was not cold, but it was cool enough that they began to shiver as they held onto the massive rope. Patrik had tied the cord around the rope, leaving one end free, and that end he now held just above the floating bowl containing the hot coal resting on a stone. They didn’t yet remove the lid. Still they waited, hoping that the others had completed their own tasks. No sound came from the darkness. Their hands became numb and their teeth began to chatter. Neither dared to say a word. They looked upstream and waited.
Suddenly a brilliant blue light lit up the river far upstream, from where they had originally entered the water. As fast as it was there, it was gone, like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. In that moment, looking upstream, he saw the sharp silhouettes of figures on the rope of the ship directly upstream. He quickly lifted the lid off the bowl, and Patrik dropped the cord into the bowl.
Time seemed to suddenly slow to a crawl. Nothing happened at first, then a streak of blue light shot out of the bowl up to the rope he and Patrik were holding onto. His eyes were dazzled by the light and he blinked, but he had not been looking directly at it, so didn’t lose his vision. Suddenly the rope went slack and he and Patrik went under water, just as the water was illuminated by a brilliant blue flash that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and seemed to last an eternity. Patrik’s face and body were clearly visible in the light, as if there was no water, and no night. Patrik’s eyes were wide and he was pointing to the north, reminding Lirak that their plan was to swim to the north shore and walk back upstream, then swim back across to return to the camp.
As he struck out to the north, the blue light faded, and was replaced by a much dimmer red and yellow light. He and Patrik swam with all their strength, ignoring the activity behind them.
Lirak lay gasping on the muddy north bank of the Fedon River. The trees around him glowed with an eerie yellow light. He sat up, looking for Patrik first. Patrik was just upstream, splashing his way toward Lirak.
“We need to get out of sight!” He said, speaking loudly so Lirak could hear him over the roar of flames coming from the river, and the shrill screams of men and beasts caught in the floating infernos.
Lirak nodded, and the two of them splashed through the mud until they were in the shadow of the trees along the bank. “We need to head back to camp!” Lirak said. Patrik nodded.
As they moved north, Patrik pointed at the river “One didn’t catch fire!” he shouted.
As Patrik pointed to the unscathed structure, Lirak saw men who had jumped from the flames swimming in the river, some coming to the north bank. “We’ve got to move!” he said, breaking into a half trot. Patrik followed.
“Lirak!” he heard a voice from the river. “Lirak!”
“It’s Mayrie!” he said to Patrik, “I’ve got to go find her!”
“OK, let’s go!” Patrik said.
The two of them rushed back to the bank. Lirak saw a figure splashing in the water and rushed toward it. Mayrie stood up in the shallow water and rushed to him.
“Where’s Kalie?” Patrik asked her.
“I don’t know” she said, shaking. “She was ahead of me in the water.”
Lirak and Patrik looked frantically around. In the light of the flames, they could see fairly well. From the river they heard shouts and the screaming of men in mortal pain. The sound and light made the night chaotic and Lirak found himself having trouble thinking.
“Was she upstream or downstream?” he asked Mayrie.
“I think she was upstream,” Mayrie gasped. “It worked! Lirak, it worked!”
Patrik pointed “Not for all of them.”
Mayrie shouted “Kalie!… Kalie!”
Patrik took her arm. “Look,” he said pointing at the swimming men. “We don’t want them to see us.” Mayrie nodded.
“Mayrie!” a voice called from upstream.
“It’s Kalie” Mayrie said, and they splashed their way upstream.
“I’m stuck” Kalie said when they reached her. “I can’t get out.”
Lirak waded into the water and saw that she still had a cord tied to her belt, and it was caught on something under the water. He pulled on it, but it didn’t come free.
“Take off your belt!” he told Kalie.
“Huh, oh!” Kalie said, reaching down and unknotting the belt. They pulled her to shore.
Just as they reached shore the night was torn apart by a blinding blue flash from just across the water from them. The first structure had collided with the second and the firestone powder had finally gone off.
The four of them moved upstream.
“Keep an eye out for Jerok and Gawn” Lirak told Patrik.
“I am” said Patrik.
Further to the west, upstream, they found Niwoq and Dobit.
“Have you seen Jerok?” Lirak asked.
“Or Gawn?” Patrik amended.
“No, just you,” Dobit gasped.
More screams erupted from the river. Men and beasts leaped from the burning structures into the river. The river itself now was filling with burning debris as the structures began to break up. Mayrie and Lirak stopped in the shadow of a large tree and watched, transfixed by the destruction. Even as the flaming debris swept around the bend and out of sight, the screams of the wounded could be heard. As they looked east, the flaming river seemed to merge with the light of the rising moon into one burning image of river and moon.
As the screams died down, Lirak and Mayrie began moving north. In the confusion the others must have left them behind. Finally the darkness returned and the screams faded into silence broken by the shouts of men on both sides of the river as they tried to regroup. Mayrie and Lirak stopped again and watched as the moon rose over the river. Mayrie’s hand found Lirak’s, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Lirak?” she said.
“What Mayrie?” he responded, feeling her shivering he put his arm around her.
“I didn’t really know what we were doing,” she said.
“I did,” Lirak said. “I saw it in my dream. It was just like this.”
“You knew about the men and beasts and the screaming,” Mayrie asked, her voice trembling as she shivered.
“Yes, I knew that would happen,” he said. “Mayrie, those men killed your mother and father, and most of the people we knew all our lives.”
“I know,” Mayrie said. She looked down the river and her eyes narrowed. “They deserved it,” she said.
Lirak turned away from the river, and took Mayrie’s head in his hands. He looked deep into her eyes. “Mayrie, when I saw what those men did to you, and saw what they had done to the others, I made up my mind that they would pay. Today is the first day that I feel like they got some of what they deserve. This is just the beginning. I will keep hurting them until the
y are all dead, or they are gone back where they came from and we can rebuild our lives. I swore an oath, and I will keep that oath.”
“I understand Lirak,” she said. “I took the same oath, remember?”
“Yes, I do,” Lirak said, and he took her in his arms and pulled her close. “I have to keep on Mayrie, do you understand that?”
“Yes,” Mayrie said. “I will be right by your side. They showed no mercy, they deserve no mercy.”
Lirak looked at her. She had stopped shivering and her face had hardened. She pulled back and stood straight in the night and looked down the river.
“There’s more to come, you pigs,” she said, and spat into the river.
Lirak and Mayrie returned to camp a while later. Chutan had clean, dry clothes waiting for them, and they huddled around the campfire. Jerok and Gawn were nowhere to be seen, but the rest were there, drinking from steaming cups that Hetyl had prepared for them. They waited for Jerok and Gawn for as long as they could, but exhaustion finally got the better of them and they slept well past daybreak.
Retreat
Much is asked of the god-touched. The gods play with lives as with game pieces. It is the irony of this prophecy that the defeater of death must first be a dealer of death.
– The Prophecies
Lirak felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Time to get up.” Chutan’s voice was low and insistent.
“What’s going on?” Lirak saw that the sun was well up.
“The invaders are searching the forest, and some are headed this way,” Chutan said. “We have to leave and go deeper into the forest.
“Do you have a place in mind?” Lirak asked, his mind coming out of its sleepy fog.
“Yes, but we have to move quickly,” Chutan said, pulling his things together.
“Where is it?” Lirak asked, Thorn pushed his head against Lirak’s thigh. Lirak patted him on the head.